Entering Urban China/China!/Author: Li Zhengliang/Publisher: Summer Festival Press

“China is kaleidoscopic. A new scene offers itself at every turn, delivering sights that are at times breathtaking, puzzling, and even incomprehensible.” So observes author Li Zheng­liang, describing his decade in mainland China.

As Li charts a course from studying to teaching, and from bachelorhood to marriage, his cultural excursions map out urban change, pop culture, and university life, revealing the social reality behind the mainland’s economic ascent.

Chai-na, Wo Zai Zhe­yang de Zhong­guo—the Chinese title of Li Zhengliang’s second book, China!—might be loosely rendered “Chai-na: The China I’m in.” It originated with an astute comment from a Beijing cabbie, who observed that for a time, you could find low buildings all over the city spray painted with the character chai (“tear down”). In his book, Li took the reconstruction of China’s urban infrastructure as the starting point for a discussion of the transformations of culture, society, and everyday life underway in the mainland, and crafted the pun “chai-na” to describe them.